About a year ago I stopped making regular updates to this blog to concentrate on my Namnesia Antidote blog. While that is an ongoing effort, I am starting what should be about a year long effort to revitalize the concept of a "This Day in History" blog. I have decided to leave this blog intact and as-is, using a new "This Day in History 2.0" blog for my expanded and full version. Please feel free to email with your ideas. The two tables below should allow you to find a posting for the "Day in History" you wish to research.

Best Liberal Quote of the Day: On Security "I tell you that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone to whom he can hand over quickly [the] gift of freedom." — Fyodor Dostoevsky

Stupidest and/or Scariest Quote from the Right for the Day: On Bashing the Clintons "While this scandal no longer dominates newspaper headlines, there continue to be aftershocks. The President's squalid affair and his subsequent criminal acts have done palpable damage to the nation. For the better part of a year Mr. Clinton engaged in a full-scale assult on the Presidency, the Constitution, The Rule of Law, Truth, Marriage Vows, Solemn Promises, the integrity of words, the reputations of truth-tellers. . . ." — William Bennett, The Death of Outrage, Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1999, p. 138.—Part 1 of 2 {Due to the length of some of these nutball quotes, I have decided to split the longer ones into parts. I could have abridged them but I think that would have lessened the impact of showing just how crazy these guys are. Please refer to previous and/or subsequent posts for complete quote.}

Dumbest Thing Said for the Day: From Politics "We should silence anyone who opposes the right to freedom of speech." — Sir Boyle Roche was an eighteenth-century Irish member of Parliament noted for malapropisms and other gaffes, Sir Boyle is Hall of Shame member #5

{Disclaimer: I have attempted to give credit to the many different sources that I get entries. Any failure to do so is unintentional. Any statement enclosed by brackets like these are the opinion of the blogger, A Proud Liberal.}

NASA ASTRONOMY PICTURE OF THE DAY

Reflections on the 1970s

Credit & Copyright: Martin PughClick picture to go to NASA APOD site for full explanation

EVENTS

● 69 - Vespasian, a former general under Nero, enters Rome to claim the title of emperor.

● 1192 - Richard the Lion-Heart was captured and imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria on his way home to England after signing a treaty with Saladin ending the crusade.

● 1522 - Suleiman the Magnificent accepts the surrender of the surviving Knights of Rhodes, who are allowed to evacuate. They eventually re-settle on Malta and become known as the Knights of Malta.

● 1606 - The Virginia Company loaded three ships with settlers and set sail to establish Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas

● 1803 - Louisiana Territory transferred from France to the U.S., at a ceremony in New Orleans, without consultation with any of the native peoples living there.

● 1835 - Cherokee Indians forced to cede their Georgia lands and cross the Mississippi River when gold was discovered on their territory. The evacuation was carried out, during the winter of 1838-39, by federal troops commanded by General Winfield Scott. Along the way, 10% of the tribe was wiped out by disease, fatigue, and exposure. The march hence known as the "Trail of Tears."

● 1835 - First signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence at Goliad, Texas.

● 1860 - In response to the victory of Republican Abraham Lincoln in the presidential election six weeks before, South Carolina becomes the first Southern state to secede from the United States. "Ordinance of Secession," declared that "the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved."

● 1876 - Hannah Omish at 12 is youngest person ever hanged in U.S. in a "legal" execution.

● 1878 - Ezra Heywood, anarchist, imprisoned for "obscenity," pardoned by President Hayes after popular agitation for his release.

● 1902 - Birth of Miura Seiichi. Christian socialist who gave up religion in 1930, and became an anarcho-syndicalist when he met Sanshiro Ishikawa. Exiled to China in 1939 with Tsing-Tao when Japan became fascist. Returned December 1945. The following year, in Tokyo, helped found the Japanese Federation of anarchists, and assumed responsibility for the international section until 1969.

● 1905 - Start of eleven-day general strike against Tsarist regime in Russia.

● 1915 - World War I: Last Australian troops evacuated from Gallipoli.

● 1976 - Mayor Richard Daley, lord and ruler of Chicago for 20 years, dies. But he had left spawn...

● 1984 - The Summit tunnel fire is the largest underground fire in history, as a freight train carrying over 1 million litres of petrol derails near the town of Todmorden in the Pennines.

● 1986 - Three black men attacked by about a dozen bat-wielding young whites in Howard Beach neighborhood, Queens, New York City; one of them, Michael Griffith (23), hit by a car and dies during flight. A year and a day later, three of the whites are convicted of manslaughter in the death.

● 1988 - The United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances is signed at Vienna.

● 1989 - U.S. invades Panama. Thousands of Panamanians die, leader Manuel Noriega jailed in U.S., drug running and corruption continue but with U.S. investor-friendly government. U.S. media bleats. Invasion force included 13,000 troops who join the approximately 12,000 American soldiers already stationed in the country. A watershed invasion, the first of a thus far endless post-Berlin Wall succession of them.

● 1990 - Reservist Dr. Yolanda Huet-Vaughn refuses orders for Gulf War, Kansas. She is later sentenced to prison, and the Kansas medical board strips Huet-Vaughn of her license to practice, because of her conscientious objection.

● 1991 - A Missouri court passes the death sentence on Palestinian militant Zein Isa and his wife Maria for the honor killing of their daughter Palestina.

● 1998 - The United States' first major anti-road protest camp, trying to stop expansion of a freeway near Minneapolis, is broken up by 600 police.

● 1999 - Macau is handed over to the People's Republic of China by Portugal.

● 2001 - Argentinian president Fernando de la Rua resigns and flees the presidential compound in a helicopter as hundreds of thousands of protesters fill the streets of Buenos Aires and other Argentinian cities in response to IMF-imposed financial policies and the resulting economic crisis.

● 2002 - US Senator Trent Lott resigns as majority leader.

● 2005 - New York City's Transport Workers Union Local 100 goes on strike, shutting down all New York City Subway and Bus services.

● 2005 - US District Court Judge John E. Jones III ruled against mandating teaching "intelligent design" in his ruling of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.

● 2006 - A judge rules against the death penalty in the case of Naveed Haq, a man convicted in the shooting death and injuries at the Jewish Federation in Seattle.

● 2005 - Maniam Moorthy, member of the first Malaysian team to summit Mount Everest

HOLIDAYS AND OBSERVANCES

● Roman Catholic:● St. Ammon● St. Dominic of Brescia● St. Dominic of Silos● St. Julius● Sts. Liberatus & Bajulus● St. O Clavis● St. Peter Thi● St. Philogonius● St. Ursicinus of Saint-Ursanne● Bl. Peter de la Cadireta

● Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar for December 7 (Civil Date: December 20)● Nativity Fast.● St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan.● St. Anthony, abbot of Siya Monastery (Novgorod).● St. Nilus, monk of Stolbensk Lake.● St. Paul the Obedient.● St. John, faster of St. Sabbas' Monastery.● St. John, faster of the Kiev Caves.● Martyr Athenodorus of Mesopotamia.● St. Gregory the Silent of Mt. Athos.

WELCOME

About Me

Life long Liberal. Actually saw JFK on campaign trail. Defining moment of my life was the assassination of JFK. First presidential election I participated in was knocking on doors for McGovern, have been tilting at windmills ever since.